


Caution To The Wind

by lalazee



Series: Roy/Ed Week 2020 [4]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Comedy, Dubious Science, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Reunited and It Feels So Good, Romance, Roy Mustang Is Bad At Feelings, Storm Chasing, Tornados, Twister AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:14:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28211472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalazee/pseuds/lalazee
Summary: In which Ed is a tornado chaser who faces the world head-on, Roywasa tornado chaser who is better at running than chasing, and the world is set on kicking Roy's ass for it.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Series: Roy/Ed Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2056500
Comments: 11
Kudos: 109
Collections: Roy/Ed Week 2020





	Caution To The Wind

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this a Twister AU! One of my favorite movies of all time. It's doesn't follow the direct path of the film, but it's heavily influenced and inspired by the film ingrained in my memory. I hope you enjoy this whether you've seen the movie or not!

“Cow,” Ed said from the passenger seat as the tornado screamed around them in a violent funnel, flinging bovines and bicycles across the road.

Roy grimaced as a second cow whirled out of the scene and into the abyss of the passing twister.

“Another cow.”

“That was the same cow,” Ed said. “Mustang, are you gonna drive? When did you lose your fuckin’ nerve?”

“I haven’t lost anything but perhaps my instinctive need to follow you into imminent danger,” Roy shot back, white-knuckling the steering wheel. These double twisters were a mere foreshadowing of the tornado ahead, and they needed to get there before it shot out of range. 

“Wooow,” Ed drawled, goading and impervious to Roy’s emotions as ever. “You’ve gone softer than that belly of yours, haven’t you. What’s your new girlfriend been feeding you?”

“Excuse me? _Ex_ -girlfriend, and I’ve barely gained five pounds since—”

“Mustang!” Ed slammed hands on the dashboard, his voice cracking, lion eyes roaring with emotion as Roy whipped his gaze to meet them. “Let me _drive_ or you’re going to ruin it for _everyone_. Go go go!”

It had been so long. A seeming eternity between the years of their breakup. Roy had followed the path of a meteorologist— _not_ a weatherman—and Ed. . .

In direct opposition to the merciless, mercurial weather he so vehemently chased, Ed remained the same. Self-assured in his search for accomplishment, predictable in his wild unpredictability, and utterly steady in his unwavering path toward a past he would never be able to reconcile or heal.

It had been so long since someone had grabbed Roy by the shoulders, screamed in his face, and demanded he _do something_ with his life. 

The pitch of adrenaline through Roy’s veins was a surging roar in his ears as he hit the gas and peeled down the road, their caravan of storm-chasers in tow. The wind shrieked at the windows, threw fists of hail at the windshield, and chased at their heels as Roy sped out of town toward the sickening sky of bruised olive green and jaundiced yellow. 

The real storm was not what they chased. The driving force sat in the seat right beside him, after all.

“Three hours in your company after three years and my life is already spinning wildly out of control,” Roy said between his teeth as he navigated a road of sideways rain and pellets of ice. A great gust shoved at the truck and Roy clenched his jaw, every nerve lighting up like it hadn’t done it years.

 _Alive_ , Ed used to say. _You gotta feel alive sometimes. Sometimes that means nearly dying._

More than anyone in their crew, Ed knew the truth of the statement. He was the only one of them who had lost someone to these great and terrible beauties. Not just his mother, but a leg from the knee down. He’d only been a child. 

“Better,” Ed said, sitting up in the seat of the truck to lean his forearms against the dash, tilting his intense expression to check the sky directly above. “Faster. Mustang, faster.”

“I’d say I’m going relatively past the lawful speed limit,” Roy said in the most placid voice he could muster. 

“RoyRoy _Roy_ ,” Ed chanted, eyes large as he whipped an arm across Roy’s chest to point an accusatory finger into the miles of cornfields. Briefly, oh so briefly, Roy’s heart jumped with the memory of Ed saying his name in a most similar way under entirely different circumstances. Although, with the way their relationship had progressed, spun out of control, and imploded, their abandoned romance wasn’t unlike that of the destructive warpath they now chased. “Roy, it’s getting away! To your left, your left!”

“There’s no _road_ , Ed,” Roy managed between clenched teeth. 

“Roy!”

“There’s _no road_.”

“Holy _shit_ , since when did you turn into such a goddamn _loser_!”

Roy didn’t realize he was swerving into the cornfield until the stalks were smacking into the hood like casualties of war, decimated under the hulking 4x4 he wielded like a tank. But now they were side by side with the twister, the ethereal roar of wind overpowering Ed’s demands, the sky spreading like a spilled ink stain above their heads.

The tornado twitched toward them and Roy’s old nerves seemed to awaken like soldiers rushing to their posts as he jerked the car back toward the road, keeping firmly in line with the cyclone as it edged back to blacktop. 

“We gotta get Dorothy outta here,” Ed yelled over the weather. Before Roy could reply, Ed was unbuckling himself and shoving open the small back window of the truck. 

“Edward, _what_ —” But Ed was already shimmying through the small open pane, one of his muddy, booted feet pushing off Roy’s shoulder as he leveraged himself through. “Incorrigible,” Roy muttered to himself, only to realize he was smiling like an absolute lunatic.

With as much care as Roy could manage without flinging his precious cargo from the back of the truck, Roy stopped at the side of the road and flung open the door. He’d barely rounded the truck by the time Ed had unstrapped the weather machine— _Roy’s_ invention, _Roy’s_ baby, _how_ had he forgotten to care so much for her—and was readying to push it from the truck.

The two of them released the hulking metallic cylinder onto the road, opening up the domed top storage space filled to the brim with intricately designed weather trackers. Roy took the briefest moment to appreciate the apparent improvements Ed had made during Roy’s absence before Ed’s wrecked voice interrupted.

“Mustang. It’s here.”

Roy had the barest time to react before a calloused hand crushed his own and pulled, yanking Roy into a dead run. The wind shoved and tore at their bodies and clothes, hair whipping in Roy’s eyes as he struggled to keep up with a pair of legs much shorter than his, and one entirely made of automail. 

A drainage ditch ran parallel to the road and the both of them dove into the deep trench in tandem. Muck, mud, and old water soaked into their clothes as Ed shoved Roy belly-down and covered the length of his frame with his own smaller one.

“You should be on the bottom!” Roy yelled over the screaming wind.

“Is this _really_ the time?” Ed hollered directly in Roy’s ear, and admittedly now _was not_ the time to be blushing. “Look ahead! The bridge.”

The rickety slab of planks connecting the main road to the cornfield barely constituted as a bridge, but the both of them scrambled on elbows and knees, flashing Roy back to the Marines quicker than he appreciated. Numbly turning his brain’s panic down several notches, Roy shifted into survival autopilot and ducked beneath the bridge with Ed in tow. They both wrapped arms and legs around the foundation poles and waited.

Words no longer carried over the wind as they shared a resolute look. Ed’s thick mane of hair was undone from its braid and whipped into his eyes, his gaze blazing like the sun amid a face caked in mud. The grinding roar of the twister seemed less powerful than the strength in that set jaw, that wide, firm mouth. As was now and was ever back then, Edward Elric was a man unshakable, even by the fiercest storm.

And then Ed smiled at him, excitement gleaming from every crack in his armor, and Roy remembered. 

He remembered what it felt like to _live_.

A screech of metal tore through the bellowing sky and Ed’s expression dropped like a stone, his pallor going grey in a split second as Roy turned to watch Dorothy drag across the pavement like roadkill. Panic pitched through Roy’s gut as the cyclone smashed into his massive red truck and sucked it into the sky like a hungry god, leaving Dorothy’s aluminum and tin cylinder tumbling and rolling like trash. 

Ed was a flash in his periphery and this time, _this_ time Roy’s instincts were catching up, because he caught hold of Ed’s wrist and yanked him back into the mud with a splat.

“Let go!” Ed screamed, his voice breaking over the uproarious sound. He slipped and stumbled to his feet in the mud and the pelting rain, hail ricocheting off the bare shoulders of his tank top as he stared in abject horror and building fury, dropping to crawl on hands and knees toward the twister. “I’ve gotta help, Roy! She’s too light, she’s—”

“I’m not letting you die, Ed!” Roy launched forward, wrestling a small, struggling Ed into the ditch. “Edward, _listen_ to me! You can’t help!”

The blur of black wind and reeling debris swarmed them like an apocalypse as Roy barely dragged Ed back beneath the bridge and wrapped Ed around the pole first, then his entire body around Ed. He could feel Ed’s frame violently quiver with either anger or tears or both, and only held on tighter.

And then, nothing.

The eye of the storm opened to them like a damp, humid spring morning, all heavy blue air and grass scent. Ed sharply looked over his shoulder, his face set stern and muddy, no tear tracks to be seen, and stared Roy dead in the eye.

“This is your fault,” he rasped.

And then the deafening howl of wind and Ed’s scorn swallowed them both. 

The tornado dissipated as quickly as it had come, leaving the scent of ozone and electricity in the buzzing air, the cornfields to the side flattened in complete destruction.

Roy could relate. There were few things more devastating than the crushing weight of Ed’s judgement. He released Ed without a word, but Ed was already flinging himself from Roy’s embrace and sprinting toward the road, plastered in muck and dirty rain. 

With a brain half functioning from shock and a heart barely running on fumes, Roy vaguely noticed how Ed’s wet, bedraggled hair reached past his belt. So long. Roy suddenly felt the true depth of their separation. 

Wandering to the trashed and littered blacktop with thumbs hooked in his belt loops, Roy coolly watched Ed scramble to collect the scattered weather trackers. He scooped up great armfuls, then turned and realized he hadn’t up-righted Dorothy—dropped the trackers across the road like a burst pinata, placed Dorothy properly, and began all over again.

Roy blandly waved as their caravan entourage squealed to a halt roadside and spilled from their RVs and trucks, the faces of his long-time friends rushing in to save the day.

“What a whopper!” Maes shouted as jogged into the warzone and began to help Ed with his collection. “You got so close, Ed! What an exceptional opportunity!”

“Was it?” Ed said, but his voice had that low rasp of someone stealing their emotions back. He dumped another round of trackers into the open dome and flicked a vicious look at Roy from across the street. Roy had apparently forgotten how tumultuous Ed’s wrath could be when he felt like he’d failed himself.

Because, of course, Roy understood that Ed hadn’t meant what he’d said. The accusation had been meant for Ed himself. He’d always been that way.

“Where’s your truck?” Maes asked Roy.

Screams erupted from the entire group as said truck plunged from the blackened heavens and smashed to rubble in the center of the road. 

Roy’s eyes bulged. Ed frowned at the mangled 4x4 like a mosquito had buzzed by his ear. 

“I hope you have insurance,” was all Ed said.

Roy gawked.

“I only came back here to meet Alphonse and Winry’s baby,” he said helplessly.

“Tough luck, Mustang,” Ed said, and although his back was turned, Roy absolutely knew he was smiling. What a tiny _horror_ of a human being. Roy wanted to throw him over his shoulder and—

“Woah, dude!” Ling bounded up to Ed, arms slinging around Ed’s neck from behind. Roy briefly narrowed his eyes, then turned away with a sigh. He got on hands and knees to climb into the shattered window of his upturned car to collect his things. “What a mess. Too light, huh? That sucks. Dorothy’s container looks fucked.”

“It is,” Ed replied tightly. “Dorothy II is the only one left and she’s not gonna fly unless we put the work in.”

“The container needs to be heavier?” Maes asked, their voices a little muffled from inside the crushed car.

“Maybe,” Ed croaked. “I’m not sure. Just making it heavier won’t ensure the trackers will fly. They just rolled across the road like golf balls or some shit.”

“We’ve got time to think,” Maes said soothingly.

“You and me both know we don’t,” Ed shot back. “Don’t placate me, Maes. Our window is so fucking small.”

“Almost as small as mine, now,” Roy said as he grunted to his feet with a backpack full of his belongings. He needed to stay behind, call the nearest tow company and his insurance. Being the prepared person he was, he did indeed have all of his bases covered. Which wouldn’t have him missing his relatively new and shiny truck any less. 

“Shut up, Mustang.” Ed pulled keys from his pocket and spun them on his finger with a smile that was all malice, a wildcat baring its teeth. “Look at it this way. Now _I_ get to drive.”

“I’ll endeavor to begin praying for myself immediately.”

“Like that’s ever helped you.”

Roy morosely stared at the pep in Ed’s limping step and muted a sigh.

“While true, you didn’t have to say it out loud.”

***

“You’ll have to forgive Ed for blatantly relishing the demise of your belongings, Roy,” said Maes as they sped down the highway in his unassuming station wagon that happened to run like a demon on six cylinders. Despite its length, the vehicle could practically fly when pushed. This car had lasted more years than both Roy and Ed’s relationship and the poor demolished truck.

“Oh,” Roy said, “will I truly have to? I think not.”

“Well, you don’t _have_ to, but it would behoove you both.”

“Behoove? You’re speaking my language in order to encourage me into softening up. It won’t work. The monster formerly known as Edward Elric is on a path of destruction greater than any F5.”

“Hardly,” Maes said, huffing a laugh as he took the exit to Al and Winry’s small farm town. “You _know_ Ed. Spite isn’t his usual nature—”

“I have it on good authority from myself that he does indeed run purely on spite and Red Bull, and has absolutely considered constructing a voodoo doll of me to plunge pins if he weren’t so disdainful of superstition. And anyway—”

“He’s been tense since he found out you were coming to meet the baby,” Maes interrupted with an undoubtedly fatherly sigh. He’d accrued and perfected an entire arsenal of paternal noises since the birth of Elysia. “I don’t believe he thought you’d come.”

“Of course I would come.”

“You haven’t for anything else on this side of the state. He wasn’t out of line for assuming.”

Roy frowned out the passenger window, barely registering the endless strips of samey houses with samey families snug inside. Even in his more melodramatic moods of fancy, he’d never been able to envision himself in a cookie cutter life. His parents had passed when he was so young, and after that it was Madame Christmas and the bar, and the apartment above said bar. 

Mentally giving himself a shake, Roy smoothed out his voice with a minor smile.

“I’m a busy man. The weather waits for no one.”

“Nor does Edward Elric,” Maes said, and _oh_ , Roy sometimes forgot that Maes knew how to stick pins in too. “He has spent three years perfecting what you abandoned, Roy. And just as we were about ready to set Dorothy free, you came back. Ed might be the youngest, but he’s been the boss these days. I’m only available during storm season and then for phone calls. Ed, on the other hand—he’s always on the field. Literally and figuratively.”

Roy inhaled, modulated his voice before he used it.

“That’s wonderful to hear, Maes. Edward is a triumph as ever, and I’m thrilled to see what he’s developed with Dorothy in my absence.”

“But now you’re _back_ ,” Maes said, the implication of guilt heavy in his tone. Another gift of paternity. 

“For a short time only. I’m limited edition—it’s what keeps me so shiny and fresh.”

“Or you could stay,” Maes said as he pulled up to a sprawling farmhouse with muddy SUVs, trucks and RVs parked in the gravel driveway and on the lawn. Switching into park and cutting the engine, Maes leaned back into the seat and finally looked at him, green eyes watchful and waiting, his mouth curved in a hopeful half-smile. “You _could_ stay.”

Roy smiled thinly even as he knew Maes would see right through it to the strain.

“And disappoint my devoted television fanbase? I could never. I am a man of honor, after all. Of honor and meteorological knowledge.”

“You’re so much more than that,” Maes said, soft and intense and earnest in ways Roy absolutely could never wholly achieve. “Your talents, while admittedly vast and multifaceted—”

“Thank you, it’s a gift.”

“—are more than the sum of your television persona.” Maes grinned, hopeful and handsome. “You’re a nerd like us, Roy. And your brain is just about the only one that can butt with Ed’s and come up with anything worse using. I’m smart too, but not in the freeform way Ed is or in the critical way you are. The two of you, you’re better together. In any capacity.”

“The capacity for which we are compatible is closer to rocket fuel designed for burning out than oil to keep things running long term.”

“As neither are renewable resources, I’m not thrilled with either comparison,” Maes said as they got out of the car and meandered toward the wide, wrap-around porch. The windows were open and already they could hear the cacophony of sound and joy inside. “But you have a point. Or maybe you two have simply been fueling the wrong mechanics between you. Maybe an overhaul is necessary.”

“I did that,” Roy said simply, his mind already ticking over with the best way to carry himself upon entering the house of Ed’s biggest fans. They would undoubtedly be less than thrilled to see him again. “It was called leaving. A rather ingenious overhaul of sorts, if you ask me.”

“I’m done asking you for opinions on relationships,” Maes said with an easy laugh as he rapped the door and took to opening it before anyone replied. “That’s why I’m married and you’re a weatherman.”

“I’m _not_ a—”

“Roy fucking Mustang,” said a voice that clearly belonged to Winry Elric. She was already making her way down the spacious hardwood hallway with one arm outstretched and the other holding a fair, sour-faced baby to her hip who mirrored Ed more than he did either of his parents. “You look exactly as shitty as I’d hoped. Come give me a kiss, but don’t you dare touch me with the rest of your muddy self. You and Ed really are a pair.”

“And you remain a vision,” Roy said with an easy smile as he kept hands to himself but leaned in to peck her on the cheek. Her skin was warm and her appearance rosy, her short-cropped hair curling at her jaw. Her eyes, though—her eyes held an unholy glee that Roy understood was entirely toward his misfortune. He would not escape this house unscathed tonight. “I’m elated that I appear exactly to your personal expectations—”

“And more,” Winry said, accepting a one-armed hug from Maes and shoo-ing him into the dining room where the din of sound remained at a steady roar.

“And this is Theodore?” Roy broke into a gleeful grin as he leaned his mud-caked face into the chubby five-month old’s and watched him stare back with mistrustful, burnished gold eyes and a familiar frown.

“He certainly is,” Roy paused and tried to think of other words that weren’t ‘Edward’, “handsome.”

“He looks more like Ed than Al,” Winry said with a huff of exasperated laughter. “I know, _I know._ Everyone keeps saying it. The Hohenheim genes are strong, I guess. That’s what I get for trying to chase the gay one first.”

Roy blinked and burst into a laugh. God, he’d missed her. Them. Ed.

“You should shower,” Winry said, switching Theo to the other arm and glancing over her shoulder when Havoc hollered, _You can’t take the last steak!_ “And by _should_ , I mean you’re absolutely going to if you want to sit at the table. And then I want to hear everything. Ed was a fucking grump getting here and I need details.”

“I would hardly want to bore you,” Roy replied, his comfortable smile tightening. “And what’s a little roll in the ditch compared to giving birth to arguably the most gorgeous child I have ever seen? You simply must tell me—”

“Yeah yeah,” Winry drawled, waving him off in the way Ed would too. “Cut the pleasantries, Roy. Childbirth sucks and I’m happy we’re out of the infant stage where sleep was something I only hallucinated about. Get your ass upstairs and find a bathroom. Shower. Then we talk.”

“Of cou—”

“And by talk,” Winry said, voice dropping an octave as she leaned in with eyes like blue ice picks and a smile just as sharp. “I mean you will tell me everything that happened three years ago and why you’re using my son as an excuse to come back after all this time to bother my brother-in-law.”

“Of course,” Roy said, with all smiles and absolutely no intention of doing anything of the sort. “My, you _truly_ are a vision. I can barely contain my awe.”

Winry pressed her lips firmly together, but they eventually quivered and she sputtered a laugh.

“Get upstairs, Roy.”

“Roger that.”

The second floor was more warm wood flooring and white wallpaper patterned with slim minty-green stripes and a peppering of dusky pink roses. At ease with the sounds of friends downstairs and the overwhelming peace above, Roy passed by doors, peeking inside one by one to find a bathroom. 

On the third knob, the handle ripped from his hold and the door whipped open, leaving Roy with a handful of damp, humid-skinned Ed clad in black boxers and wearing a stark look of horror. Roy allowed himself the briefest moment to relive how unbelievable this little package felt all pressed into him before he released and stepped back in the wake of Ed’s closed-mouth scream and recoil. 

“You motherfucking —”

“I see I’ve found the shower, then,” Roy said with a placid curve of lips. He propped his hands upon his hips and watched Ed decide between actively fuming at him and storming away.

Of course, Ed had always been a multitasker. 

“Can’t relax for a goddamn second in my own fucking house!” Ed hollered as he shouldered into Roy on his stomping march down the hallway. With his retreat brought a nostalgic glimpse of the wide expanse of Ed’s tawny shoulders and the wicked nip of his little waist, the black towel slung around his slim hips only accentuating the barely contained power of his build. Ed’s body had always been trained for stamina, and he’d never worked out for the purpose of vanity, but practicality. The fact didn’t make Roy’s mouth water any less. “You’re a walking nightmare! Who the hell just _opens_ bathroom doors? Jeezus—“

“Usually people who need to use the bathroom,” Roy replied reasonably. 

“ _Shut up_ ,” Ed snapped, whirling in the doorway of the last room down the hall. 

Roy had never seen the bedroom Ed kept at what was originally Winry’s family home. He’d heard that when Granny Pinako passed away last year, Ed had ditched his city studio apartment in favor of moving back to the country, just three miles down the road from the Elric home that had been torn to smithereens when Ed had only been a child. For all intents and purposes, _this_ house had been Ed and Al’s home for their lives, but Roy had only ever visited as a food pitstop between tornado runs. 

Everything and everybody had changed so much, but Ed remained the same. The whirlwind of his personality had been the initial attraction, but the solid, loyal nature borne in Ed’s bones was what had kept Roy for so long. 

It was also what had terrified him more than any twister.

Roy blinked and realized that Ed was still talking, ranting. He smiled in the most infuriating way he knew how.

“I’m sorry, I missed all of that. You were saying?”

Ed’s eyes bugged out, his face contorting into pure violence before he slammed the door in both of their faces. The levity of Roy’s expression dropped like curtains as he tucked himself away into the bathroom that smelled of Ed and washed away the grime and guilt of the day. 

***

Mosquitoes blitzed to their death in the glowing bug lights hanging from the porch eaves as Roy sucked down his fifth beer and smiled at the small group of friend who had managed to stay awake this late into the night. Most of the crew had showered and returned to the RVs they lived in for life or through the summer, while a circle of stained white plastic summer chairs had closed in around the little glass table covered in sticky beer spills and an unfinished poker game.

“—and Roy is stumbling drunk at this point,” Mae continued, regaling a wide-eyed, grinning Alphonse who had never heard this one before, “drinking straight from the fifth of Jack. Butt naked—”

“I still have nightmares about this,” Riza interjected, her posture relaxed in the chair, her shower-damp hair drying into frays in the night humidity.

“ _Butt naked_ ,” Maes emphasized, “he strolls up to the twister, holds out the fifth, and says—”

“HAVE A DRINK,” Havoc cut in, keeling forward with laughter. “And he—he chucks the entire fucking bottle into the tornado!”

Alphonse looked like Christmas came early, absolutely soaking in the laughter and glee. 

“I suppose this is why my brother never let me tag along, huh?”

“Mustang would have ruined your innocence,” Ed cut in, cracking a pistachio between his teeth and spitting the shell off the side of the porch. “It was for your own good. And your eyes.”

“You act like your eyes didn’t see the worst of it,” Alphonse said with a smile that spoke of sibling victory. “I never heard you complaining. Much.”

“I promise you,” Ed said, cracking another nut with a particularly vicious bite, his molten glare meeting Roy’s innocently passive expression, “it was definitely the worst.”

“It’s cool,” Havoc said, absolutely not reading the room as he slouched back into his chair with a happy sigh. “Everyone’s seen Roy naked like a thousand times.”

“Roy?” Alphonse said, looking to Roy with eyebrows raised expectantly. “I haven’t seen you naked. You don’t trust me?”

“I rather value my limbs unbroken,” Roy said with curved lips, pointedly not looking at the lion’s stare across the table from him, “if it’s all the same to you, Alphonse. My survival instincts are fairly honed after a life in the presence of your charming brother.”

“Ha!” This time, Ed spat a pistachio shell across the table, hitting Roy dead center of the chest. “Fuck off, Mustang. Take your lazy weatherman ass back home, wherever that is now, and leave my cute innocent brother alone.”

“You are aware that your brother has a child, right?” Roy said casually, flicking the shell away with a put-upon sigh. “I very highly doubt there is anything innocent about him anymore.”

Alphonse laughed, Riza sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, and Maes merely said a quiet: _uh oh_.

There. There was the flare of incensed fury of the fight that Roy had missed so much without realizing it until today. He had about ten seconds to appreciate the expression before Ed was out of his chair and barely skirting the table, knocking over empty beer bottles in the process.

“Roy fucking Mustang, you motherfu—”

Roy was off like a shot, toppling his chair, thundering down the steps with a laugh he hadn’t felt in his chest in three years, the wind screaming against his face as he ran straight for the line of cornfields that backed up the house. He could hear Ed screaming after him, gaining on him, and with the thrill of the chase jolting adrenaline through his limbs, Roy bolted into the high field.

Rows of corn drowned Roy over his head, whispering and crackling as he zig-zagged through the stalks, his breath coming hard and fast with the sudden race. Ed crashed in tow, cursing him to hell and back despite the exasperated laugh that choked off Ed’s litany a time or two. 

Grinning wildly to himself, Roy turned with the intention of running back to the house and leaving Ed lost in the field when a great weight clothes-lined him and dropped him to the dirt. With the wind knocked out of it, Roy groaned, still smiling and, god, he was laughing, wasn’t he? He was absolutely crazy, wasn’t he? Crazy for Ed as ever and always, and that had always been what had terrified him the most.

“You dumbshit!” Ed was straddling Roy’s waist with strong thighs, his automail leg an unforgiving weight against Roy’s thigh. With one hand on his hip, Ed pointed an accusatory finger in Roy’s smiling face. The moon was pregnant and high in the night sky, splashing Ed in silver and showing off the high flush in Ed’s cheeks. “You think you can outrun me just because you’re freakishly tall?”

“I’m not even six feet tall—”

“I will take you down every damn time,” Ed said, his breathing evening out as he dropped a hand to Roy’s palm and smiled sharp with the wind. “While you’ve been cloud-watching from inside a building, I’ve been running after them. Always have been. That’s the difference between us, Mustang. Don’t fuckin’ forget.”

Roy kept up his smile, but it had gone tight and false on his face with Ed’s words. He wasn’t wrong. Except Roy had always been the faster runner between them; simply not in the way Ed proposed. 

“Edward,” Roy said carefully, “would you mind getting off of me? I believe you won this time. I’m going to need another shower.”

“There’s no shower long enough to ever get _you_ clean, Mustang,” Ed said, but he was grinning in good nature once more as he alighted from Roy’s body and offered a hand. “Come on, it’s late. We got shit to do tomorrow.”

Roy took Ed’s hand and allowed himself to be leveraged to his feet, and suddenly he didn’t want to leave. Didn’t want to step from the cloistered comfort of the fields, where Ed was smiling at him like normal, speaking to him like three years had never passed and Roy had refused Ed’s long-ago offer and chucked it into a whirlwind with as much care as he’d done a bottle of booze.

He’d been an absolute fool. For some reason it was only setting in now, after all this time. 

“You—” Ed paused, looking a little startled when Roy stopped dead to stare at him intently. “Uh, I mean, are you leaving tomorrow morning? Since you met Theo and all. You gotta get back to your big important job and shit.”

“No,” Roy said quickly, too quickly. He tucked his hands in his pockets to keep his body from acting of its own accord. “No, I—I’ll be staying for a while longer. I took a week of vacation days.”

“Oh,” Ed said, looking at Roy with big amber eyes that caught the moonlight and shined. “Okay. I guess.”

“And anyway,” Roy rushed in, struggling to keep his manner cool and contained as he began to walk ahead, attention straight forward, “I don’t have a truck anymore, do I? I’ve got the address of the rental company my insurance covers, so Maes will have to take me there by the end of the week so I can pick one up to drive home.”

“Shit, yeah,” Ed said, winding between the creaky stalks, their leaves hissing against his clothes and he wedged between them with a frown. “That sucks.”

“I suppose it comes with the territory. Not of tornadoes, but of you.”

“Me?” Ed scowled, whipping his head around to glare at Roy and getting a stalk slapped against his cheek for the distraction. Sputtering, he slapped it away and they kept walking as Roy pointedly did not laugh or smile lest he lose an arm for it. “I didn’t ask you to come with your stupid shiny car or your smarmy-ass face!”

“Yes, well, your brother did.” Roy took a deep breath of cool, late spring air as they emerged from the cornfield. The house sprawled in the distance, white and familiar and the porch lights lit for them. An old, creaking swing set that must have hailed from Ed’s childhood sat still, waiting for new life, new innocence to enjoy its old, worn down wooden seats. “So, here I am.”

“That’s all it takes, huh?” Ed said, something in his voice through which Roy could not parse. 

“Well,” Roy said, trying not to drag down the conversation into murky, unfamiliar depths, “that and paid vacation days.”

Ed clicked his tongue and shook his head, but the look they shared was surprisingly warm, even quiet. 

As they approached the back porch, Roy noticed that the crew had cleaned up and cleared out. No evidence remained of Roy and Ed’s mess or their altercation.

How apt for so much more.

“Well,” Ed said, his voice flat with such sudden change that Roy couldn’t help but frown directly at him before he could smooth his features. Ed was making the same kind of face, but his gaze wasn’t confused but cold and cut off. “Goodnight, Mustang. Enjoy the couch.”

Roy bit back a sigh and smiled, careful and small, scared to disturb the brittle silence between. He held the door open for Ed, who glared and stomped through, marching down the hall without another word.

“Goodnight, Edward,” Roy murmured, his smiling warming and his heart clenching when he noticed the dried lead of a cornstalk straight out the back of Ed’s hair. 

_Roy, you absolute fool._

***

“Here,” Winry’s voice cut through Roy’s restless sleep and a sudden warm weight was placed upon his lap. Roy cracked open his crusty eyes and instinctively reached out to balance the frowning baby on his stomach, his brain barely booting up to understand what was yet happening. “Watch him while I make breakfast. Then we can talk.”

Dread had Roy masking a groan and dropping his back against the throw pillow, squeezing his eyes shut as he collected himself. Winry was the final bastion of Ed’s protectors, and undoubtedly the most intimidating. And with motherhood under her belt, her ferocity had only undoubtedly grown. 

“Bah bah bah bah bah!” said Theo, tipping back a little in Roy’s hold until Roy sat up, laying the baby back on his outstretched thighs. 

Roy met giant gold eyes and couldn’t help the tired, appreciative curve of lips.

“Yes,” Roy said, nodding knowingly. “Bah bah bah.”

“BAAAAAH!” Theo screeched without anger, but his face went red with the exuberance of the shout anyway. Roy sputtered a laugh and lifted him so his chubby feet could rest on Roy’s knees, his fat, squat legs wobbling without any real balance. God, he looked _so much_ like Edward.

“What else?” Roy said, grinning and leaning in. “Tell me, Theo. What else?”

Theo squealed and started to kick his legs in place like he was trying to run, his little drooly mouth babbling with quickfire intensity and Roy laughed again.

“Oh my _goodness_ ,” Roy murmured, melting. “You _are_ him. I love you. Please don’t hate me when you grow up. I will spoil you the very most. I will buy you your first car. My prerequisite request is that you don’t let it get sucked up into a tornado, though. This is going to look like hell on my insurance claim.”

“Muuuh _muhmuhmuh_ ,” Theo said, blinking those unwieldy large eyes and reaching out with a fat hand. Roy leaned in and smiled, even as Theo clawed at his nose with dangerously sharp little baby nails. 

“Alright, alright,” Roy said with a theatrical sigh. “You can give it to the tornado. I won’t even be angry.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Winry said, smiling as she walked in with two over-sized mugs of coffee in hand. “His overzealous Uncle already does that enough. I’ll be lucky if Theo stays out of twister tracks before he’s sixteen.”

Smiling with appreciation for Ed’s sensibilities in getting to Theo’s ideals first, Roy shifted on the couch, feet to the floor with Theo on his lap, both of them facing Winry as he gratefully accepted the coffee. He wrapped an arm around Theo’s waist and took his first sip with his face turned away from the baby, all too aware that hot drinks and children absolutely did not mix. But he didn’t want to let go of the vivacious little bundle of Ed, so he would cling until he couldn’t any longer. 

For a moment, he and Winry both drank, and the giant, ornate clock on the living room wall showed Roy it was barely six in the morning. Roy couldn’t have gotten more than four hours of sleep, yet somehow he felt energized by the company, both Theodore and Winry’s. 

He’d been spending so much time focusing on work and purposely forgetting what he’d left behind that Roy had failed to make any lasting friends on his side of the state. All of them had always been chasing Ed. People did a lot of that. Ed brought loyalty out in people due to his own stalwart, unyielding nature. 

He’d offered that loyalty to Roy in spades and it had, frankly, scared the shit out of him.

“So,” Winry said, and oh yes, the dread in the pit of Roy’s stomach had returned with full weight. “As much as I would love the novel-length version of how you fucked up something that was clearly laid out on a platter for you, I’ll also accept the Cliff Notes version because I know you’re as much a stingy bastard with details as Ed is.”

Roy blinked, attempting innocence, but when the expression only caused Winry’s gaze to darken, Roy smiled uneasily.

“I. . .” Roy took a quick sip of coffee and set it aside as Tho began to struggle in his hold and tear at the collar of his t-shirt. 

“He likes to stand,” Winry said blandly. “I think he likes to be tall.”

“I’ve heard that somewhere before,” Roy said, smiling despite himself as he turned Theo in his lap and held him up so those tiny feet could wobble on his thighs again. 

“You still care about him,” Winry said, earning Roy’s sharpened attention. She was frowning into the mug held up to her mouth, her short hair still in morning disarray, the baggy university t-shirt where Alphonse worked dwarfing her frame. She looked pretty and a little sad and Roy’s chest felt tight in being the cause for her expression. “You very obviously still care about him after all this time. So, why? Was he not enough?”

“No,” Roy interjected quickly, but Winry bowled him over.

“Was it only an attraction?” Winry said, “Because I could understand that. Sometimes the physical match is ideal but the rest of it is a mess. You two were always a hot mess, right from the beginning, but I thought you worked. We all thought you two worked.”

“We worked,” Roy said carefully. They had worked _too_ well, Roy had been too happy, too content, to homey. He hadn’t known what it felt like to be any of those things all at once and the result had been overwhelming. Ed was overwhelming, always. “The problem certainly was not attraction or compatibility, Winry. The problem was me. Is me.”

Winry’s frown deepened, her pale brows scrunching as he looked at Roy like he was some complex slab of dysfunctional automail. 

“What the hell happened, Roy?” she asked quietly, still cutting to the heart of the matter. “Ed would never tell me, not Al either. One day you two were deliriously into each other, like fifteen months into a relationship where we could barely keep you two apart, and then you were gone. Literally, gone and on the other side of the state. What the hell made you run _so far_ , Roy?”

“Ed asked me to marry him,” Roy said, hearing the robotic tightness in his voice, aware of how still and unaffected he must look as sound as he met Theo’s eyes and let the little one squish at his cheeks with both hands. “He asked me to marry him and I said no and I left. And that’s it. That’s everything. A rather shorter story than a novel, I’m afraid. Don’t tell Ed about that short joke, please.”

The silence pushed in on Roy’s ears like gravity sucking from the room, like a change in altitude plugging his sinuses and pressing in at all sides until he finally looked up.

“WHAT?” Winry jolted to her feet and Theo’s lip wobbled as he broke into a wail, his mother snatching him from Roy’s arms and settling him against her shoulder as she stared down at him with the wrath of a woman, mother, and best friend scorned. “You absolute fucking idiot, Roy Mustang! You should be ashamed to step _foot_ in this house. Holy _shit_ , I can’t believe Ed even let you in. _Again_. I can’t _believe_ it. I can’t believe _this_. I can’t believe he didn’t tell me. I can’t believe _you_ —”

“Honey,” Al’s warm, soft voice intervened as he rushed into the room, looking dashing as ever in crisp olive khakis and worn leather suspenders. He immediately put an arm around Winry and began to usher her from the room. “Hi baby, hey, um, why don’t I just handle this? You shouldn’t be stressing in your—”

“I will slap you across the fucking _state line_ , Roy Mustang,” Winry hollered, whirling and jamming a finger at his stunned frame frozen on the couch. “Don’t think I won’t. If you don’t make this right with Ed, I will never let you on my porch ever again! I can’t _believe_ you would—”

“Why don’t you work on your sculptures, Win,” Alphonse said soothingly. “Take some time for yourself to—”

“The only thing I want to take is to dismember Roy Mustang piece by piece and use him as a scarecrow for my fucking _tomatoes_ ,” Winry snarled, still requiring Al’s guiding hands to inch her out of the room and snatch Theo as he murmured something further to her in the kitchen.

Roy sat there, trying to recall the last time he feared more for his life. Yesterday caught in a twister didn’t even come close to a scorned Winry Elric.

By the time the back door finally slammed, Roy was already up and digging through his backpack for a clean shirt and wondering just how fast he could get Maes to drive him to the rental shop. 

“Roy,” Alphonse said from behind. When Roy only hummed in response, pointedly facing away as he yanked off one shirt and buttoned up a thin white and grey flannel, Alphonse sighed. “You’re not going to run again, are you?”

“I dare say I’m not running at all,” Roy said as he turned with a small, composed smile and tucked the shirt into his jeans. “I’m right here, in fact.”

Now Alphonse was frowning at him, which was somehow wholly worse than Winry’s rage because he appeared so utterly dejected and disappointed. 

“Roy,” Alphonse said, his voice still warm and soft, “I think you’ve made a lot of mistakes, and if you’re not careful, you’re about to make some more.”

“Yes, well,” Roy said tightly. “I am human, contrary to popular belief. I apologize for ruining the mystique.”

“There’s absolutely nothing mysterious about you, Roy,” Alphonse said, cracking a smile. “I apologize for ruining your delusion. But it’s always been obvious, to me, anyway, that you were and are crazy in love with my brother, and him with you.” 

Roy busied himself with folding the crochet blanket he’d slept beneath, taking the time to carefully lay it over the back of the soda.

“Be that as it may, his feelings for me no longer exist and I am content to let sleeping lions remain as such.”

“Do you truly believe Ed is sleeping on you?” Alphonse said, and now that Elric steel was rising to the forefront, lining his tone with tenacity and self-assurance. “Because I think that, with you, he’s always been wide awake. You’re the one who’s always been closing his eyes and running blind because you’re afraid of the scenery or where you’ll end up when you open them.”

Roy stood in the center of the room and didn’t know what to do with his hands. He felt moorless and struggling to stay afloat. 

“Alphonse,” he said, despising how helpless the single word sounded. 

“Winry is right,” Alphonse said, his expression stern even as he lightly swayed and bounced Theo on his hip. “You need to make this right, in whatever capacity you plan to approach this. You can’t just hurt the person I love most and expect us to let you back in through your charms alone. Charm is hollow when there’s no character to back it up.”

“Ouch,” Roy said, because _ouch_. The pain in his chest constricted.

Alphonse didn’t reply. He stared, then stared some more, utterly unyielding as he waited on Roy to step up.

“I’ll stay, of course,” Roy amended, running both hands through his hair in attempts to settle his bedhead and to look ultimately casual about it. He didn’t even know from where these words were coming or if he could hold himself to them. “As you say, I’ll make it right. In whatever capacity seems reasonable.”

“Sure,” Alphonse said, smiling the most unnerving, ungodly smile. “Reasonable is definitely the way to get through to Edward. Good luck with that, Roy.”

Roy was fast beginning to feel like his luck was running out, but he managed a thin smile all the same.

“Thank you, Alphonse. May I help you make breakfast?”

“Sure,” Alphonse said, the clouds clearing from his eyes as if they’d never been, and the way he could shift from stern to sunny had always managed to leave Roy reeling with the power this man held over everybody with which he interacted. “Come on, let’s get Theo in the highchair.”

They spoke amicably as they cooked, the early sunrise bleaching the kitchen’s bright white and soft blue interior like something out of a model house. Of course, the thundering of the crew busting into the house for sustenance and chatter immediately took the immaculate nature of the home with it.

The dining room was packed, the one end reserved for Theo’s highchair with Alphonse at one side and Winry notably missing on Theo’s other side. Ed had dragged his half-animated corpse down the stairs, looking beautiful and tired, his hair scrunched in a riotous bun atop his head that was still crooked from sleeping on it, dressed all in black and bare feet, one metal, as he made a beeline for the coffee, then hunkered down beside Alphonse. Roy sat across from it, smiling his most charming smile, to which he received a stink eye in return. Fair enough.

The rest of the table was crowded with Maes, Riza, Havoc, Falman, Fuery, and Ling. With all of them yelling over the table, passing trays of sizzling steak, fried eggs, and fresh biscuits from the oven, Roy almost forgot three years had passed. This felt like the home he remembered.

Except Ed wasn’t playfully kicking his shins under the table or grinning at him as he hurled errant insults at Roy, their eyes catching and holding with the spark of a night spent together. No, Ed was distinctly not looking at Roy, instead busying himself at Ling’s side, exchanging banter and discussing how they were going to make Dorothy fly. 

Eventually, when Ling began to undo Ed’s hair at the table, laughing and urging Ed to turn as he French-braided the long mane into a shorter, more refined look than what Ed usually wore. Or, what Roy assumed he usually wore. It had been a long time. Maybe more changed than he’d imagined.

Ed caught Roy’s intense stare and narrowed his eyes.

“Got a problem, Mustang?”

“None at all,” Roy said, promptly sipping some sweet tea while keeping his measured gaze on Ed’s, unwilling to be the first to look away.

“Great.” Ed shoved a bread roll into his mouth and talked around it. “We’re headin’ out after lunch. Fuery caught a transmission about an incoming front churning up some thirty miles away. Probably gonna grab a motel room there and wait it out, looks like it might arrive late evening.”

“Would you like me to drive?” Roy asked, smirking at the flare in Ed’s eyes. 

“We already tried that,” Ed said, smiling like the devil and oh, he and his brother absolutely had that in common. “You sucked, remember? Anyway, my truck is temperamental. You wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

“I think I have a fair amount of experience with temperamental things.”

The remaining bread roll came hurling at his face and Roy caught it neatly, taking a bite of it as Ed glowered.

“You should ride with Maes or Riza and Havoc, anyway,” Ed said, returning to his food with less gusto than previous. Roy stopped chewing, swallowing the suddenly hard lump of bread.

“If it pleases you,” he said easily, cursing himself. Ed may have been temperamental, but Roy was unwaveringly stubborn when he let himself get lost in it. 

“Since when do you care what pleases me,” Ed muttered, pushing off the table and taking his empty plate along with others down the row. Roy watched him stomp into the kitchen and refused to sigh out loud in front of everyone.

“Roy,” Maes said from beside him. He slapped Roy’s back in a cajoling manner with a force that hurt rather than comforted. “You really fucked it up this time.”

“Thank you, Maes,” Roy said evenly. “This is why I treasure our friendship.”

The rest of the early afternoon was spent with Theo and Alphonse, with Ed announcing he was off to keep Winry company. Maes lingered in the living room, playing with Theo like he’d never seen a baby in his life when he had his own two year old at home. He had to have taken two-dozen photos with his phone, frantically texting them to Gracia every other minute. 

Roy looked between Alphonse and Maes, two dissimilar but equally kind and caring and warm human beings, and wondered how the white picket fence life felt for them. They appeared blissfully happy, both of them at different ages with different relationship dynamics and different backgrounds. There was nothing ‘samey’ about their married lives, nothing that appeared exceptionally boring either.

But Roy, who had been raised on burlesque dancers filtering through his home with constant flair and newness, had been raised by a woman who ran a business that thrived on originality and excitement—he couldn’t fathom the lifestyle he saw before him. Roy’s life had always been a whirlwind of increasing adventure and challenge, right up to his love for chasing the whirlwinds themselves.

And then, Ed. Another whirlwind, another breath of fresh, riotous air in a stagnant, sticky midsummer world stuck in the same-old, same-old.

What did marriage mean to Ed? Roy had never asked. He’d only run.

“Can I offer some advice?” Alphonse said as everyone trailed between the house and the car, packing food and goods, ready to go. Roy stood on the front porch, his backpack slung over one shoulder, the sky a stormy grey that Roy bitterly realized reflected his mood. When he silently nodded, Alphonse took a breath and smiled, gentle this time, charming with the character to back it up. “Honesty is the best policy. Not the dance you do. Ed meets the world head on and he deserves an equivalent exchange. If you love him, you’ll offer that, at the very least.”

Roy was learning that sometimes it was best he simply not speak. So instead he nodded again and waved, turning and heading for Maes’ station wagon. Ed was sitting in the open tailgate of the truck, legs swinging with grimy, mud-caked boots laced up his shapely calves, face buried in a map he was marking up in pencil. As Roy passed, he looked up with a mutinous expression, to which Roy smirked in automatic reply. Ed’s face instantly went up in flame and _oh_ , that was something, wasn’t it?

The ride with Maes was surprisingly without any mental or emotional torture. Roy supposed Maes was allowing Ed the pleasure of that in the future. At least Roy had survived the Elric household. 

Maes blasted the radio and they sang along, exchanging stupid smiles like they were teenagers again, and Roy felt something in his chest shift, clouds breaking to reveal a little more light than before. He breathed into it and let himself doze in the comfort of his best friend’s presence. 

The motel was squat and long and orange, attached to an ancient drive-in movie theater that Roy remembered visiting in the past, seemingly so long ago. The place appeared the same as ever, with cheap rates but expensive food from the stall because of the movie business.

The sun hadn’t yet set, and the sky remained a foreboding slate of solid grey above their heads as they parked before their rooms. Ling, as well as Havoc and Riza took no rooms because of their RVs, while Fuery, Falman, and Maes filed into the office to check rooms for the rest of them. 

Which left Roy approaching Ed at an orange plastic picnic table with two coffees from the stall, dropping down across from him and offering the caffeine like a peace offering. 

When Ed only looked dubiously between the coffees and Roy’s face, Roy smiled.

“It’s not poisoned, I promise.”

“Nah.” Ed shook his head, taking the coffee and taking a test sip, hissing and putting it down when it was too hot. “Was more thinking what you wanted in exchange for it. Nothin’s ever free with you.”

 _Ouch_. The Elric brothers were good at this.

“You injure me, Edward,” Roy said, smiling as he propped an elbow on the table and leaned his chin upon his palm. “What could I possibly want from you?”

That. . .was the wrong thing to say. Ed’s clamped up and went caustic, those predatory wild cat eyes going hard and merciless. 

“You’re right,” Ed bit off, each word a staccato bullet. “What could you _possibly_ want from someone like _me_? Bastard.”

Ed was already abandoning his coffee, sliding from the seat as he spoke. Panic jolted Roy into motion, taking Ed’s forearm, then releasing when Ed whirled on him.

“You know what?” Ed spat. “I don’t want a single goddamn thing from you either, Mustang. In fact, I’m counting down the days until you get your smug face out of my life for good.”

He strode away, leaving Roy stunned in the up-kick of dust, then whirled, jamming a finger at him in the same way Winry had.

“Winry was right, you know,” Edward hissed, dropping his voice as if he didn’t want anyone to hear him admit it. “You’re bad news, Roy. A grown fuckin’ man who can’t make a single solid choice in his life. I thought—I once thought we could do this life thing together. That we both wanted to take this shitty world by storm and make a difference. But you’re so busy living in your head that you never really _live_. And I’m long past done trying to figure out what you want when you can barely figure it out yourself.”

_Shit._

“Shit,” Roy said, to nothing and no one but his damn self.

Roy was unequivocally in love with Edward Elric, wasn’t he.

***

The twister arrived faster than any computer could alert them of its arrival. 

The shriek and tear of the gargantuan drive-in cinema screen ripped in half like paper, devoured by the roaring black funnel as screams of terror cut through the destruction. Cars rolled, crushing other cars like tumbleweeds, near-missing bystanders on the run. 

Roy and Ed had been the first to run into the fray, fear rocketing them into action instead of stillness, adrenaline driving them to drag people from the incoming tornado, shoving and urging them toward the brick and stone storage building behind the hotel. Riza held the door open, Havoc holding on to Riza as the wind fisted around her body and tried to fling her into the nothing.

“Ed!” Roy yelled over the mechanical screech and crunch of the twister, debris flying through the air, nearly missing Ed as he bolted toward Roy’s open arms, ducking as the bumper of a car nearly took his head off the shoulders. Roy hurled himself at Ed, yanking him into a sprint, back toward the shelter where three dozen people had crammed inside, some crying and bleeding.

The door slammed shut behind them, secured by a steel bar, and as Ed ducked into a crouch on the floor, Roy did the only thing that made sense. He covered Ed’s entire body with his, one arm wound tightly around Ed’s waist, the other hand holding onto Riza, who held onto a long line of others, anchoring each to the earth.

It wasn’t enough. Sometimes it wasn’t enough.

The roof peeled off like a can of sardines, the brick walls crumbling in on themselves, tumbling on to families and friends. The bellow and howl of the wind was directly on top of them, a tornado the size Roy hadn’t seen in years, probably an F4, judging by the strength it pulled the walls of the shelter right up and away as it passed. The building didn’t even fall upon them; simply carried away.

Somewhere amid the nightmare screams of the wind, Roy realized Ed was clutching the hand around his waist with both hands, nails biting into Roy’s skin, Ed’s brow smashed against the ground, Roy’s face pressed firmly between Ed’s shoulder blades.

The tornado did not dissipate, but moved onward it is path of desolation, tearing apart lives as it tore through the landscape. But it had passed them up. They had survived, all of them. Some worse for wear, but alive, and that’s all they could have done. 

“Mustang,” Ed’s voice was muffled from the concrete floor, hard to hear when people were shakily getting to their feet or crying or calling the names of their loved ones. “ _Roy_.”

“Yeah?” Roy breathed out, directly against Ed’s back. He could feel Roy’s jackrabbit heart and unconsciously hung on harder. The storm had passed, but his and Ed’s had not. He just wanted to treasure this moment, this sliver of a very-alive Ed in his arms.

Maybe a boring life was a little bit alright when it meant Ed wasn’t going to end up flung into the merciless sky like his parents had been. 

“You can let me go now,” Ed said, still sounding a little far away and tinny to Roy’s ears. 

“Could I. . .not?” Roy murmured.

Ed sat up suddenly, nearly cracking his head against Roy’s nose as he whipped a look over his shoulder with wide eyes and a scrape on the bridge of his nose. 

“Edward,” Roy said, ignoring the way his voice cracked in half. His head was swimming and Ed was so precious to him and this life was so short to watch the weather from his television screen instead of being on the ground, committing glorious acts of science and saving people with his own hands. “Ed, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’ve been a colossal idiot for the longest time, but the way I feel about you—”

“Ed!” Maes was jogging toward them, looking battered and bruised but fine. Roy recalled Maes retiring early to his motel room to sleep. Now, though, his eyes were sharp, his mouth a thin slash as he tripped into the doorway that was the only surviving structure of the building. “Ed, the storm is headed for Resembool. It—it won’t be long. Ed, we’ve got to—”

Ed’s face sapped white as he burst into motion, ripping from Roy’s embrace with a choked, guttural sound of horror. He swayed once on his feet, but found his balance and shoved past Maes in a wordless dash toward his junky truck. 

“Ed!” Roy fumbled to his feet and the world spun. “We’ve got to—”

“ _Roy_.” Maes hands gripped Roy’s shoulders, steadying him. “Your head is bust open. We need to get you first aid.”

“Fuck first aid,” Roy snapped, eyes following the path of Ed as he disappeared into his motel room for his belongs or keys or something. “We all know head wounds bleed worse than they are. We’ve got to _go_.”

“Fine,” Maes agreed instantly, clearly not wanting Ed to go alone either. “But you’re bandaging your head in the car while I drive.”

“Deal,” Roy said, already walking, sharp and purposeful with years in the Marines to back it up. He saw Riza, flagging her with motion. She looked abjectly suprised to see him, so he must have looked worse than the shock was letting him feel, but that could be dealt with later.

The entire crew were on the road in ten minutes, Ed having already rocketed down the trashed streets and toward the highway. Roy yanked off his t-shirt in the car, using it to mop up the mess of blood that might have been his face underneath. 

When he looked at his eyes in the tiny lit mirror attached to the roof, he briefly recognized the look of a reckless eighteen year old soldier searching for a life of meaning. Now, he was speeding down the blacktop, chasing an altogether more meaningful life. 

As predicted, the wound wasn’t as bad as it looked. The cut was deep but not long, tucked up against his hairline, easily hidden by his hair. Although said hair was caked in drying blood, so Roy dumped half a water bottle over his head, slicked the hair back, and set to bandaging himself up. Roy didn’t question why Maes kept butterfly strips in his glove compartment, but he was fairly certain Ed was to blame. 

They arrived in record time, but not soon enough.

Sometimes it simply wasn’t enough. 

Ed was on the half-collapsed roof of the house, flared to life under the lights of a fire truck and police car. No surprises, everyone was yelling at Ed to get off the house, but he was resolutely and athletically traversing the torn landscape with a resolute look of steel on his face. It looked like the tornado clipped just one side of the house, tearing away the dining room and upstairs master bathroom, and leaving the rest cracked down the middle like an earthquake had hit instead.

Running solely on determination and deep desire to protect the man he loved, Roy bolted past the rescue professionals and began the climb. 

Distantly, he caught the harried, buried barks of Den, their loyal but rather old dog. He slipped on a loose thatch of roof tiles, cursing as he dropped to one knee, then pushed off, urging himself further until he caught sight of Ed again. 

Relief coursed through Roy’s roaring blood as he watched Alphonse’s head and arms pop up from the crack in the house, passing a wobbly-faced Theo out to a steady-handed Ed. Not a whiff of fear radiated from Ed, only a resolute calm that Roy recognized from facing off death too many times. 

“Roy!” Ed jerked his head toward Roy, clutching Theo close to his body. “They’re fine! Take him!”

Roy followed orders quickly. By the time he'd carefully received Theo in hand and turned around, the fireman’s ladder was already up, a fighter in yellow waiting there with arms outspread.

A sharp stab of distrust startled Roy as he held tighter to the child, briefly rubbing his cheek atop Theo’s fuzzy head.

“I’m. . .not comfortable with letting him go,” Roy said slowly, realization dawning that he meant more than just the baby.

Eventually, everyone made it to ground. Shaken, but alive and whole. 

“We need a paramedic to check on my wife,” Alphonse said to the firefighter while cradling Theo to his chest and holding a steely-faced Winry with his free arm. “She’s pregnant.”

“WHAT?” Ed said, whipping around to gawk at the couple.

Roy clucked his tongue.

“Told you he wasn’t innocent.”

Ed turned on him, opening his snarling mouth to say something, but seemed to remember what had occurred between one mayhem and another, because his entire face flared up red and he quickly looked away.

“Congratulations,” Ed said with a wobbly smile, jogging forward to pull them both into a double-armed hug.

“Congratulations,” Roy said uselessly from the sidelines. 

“Hey,” Ed said, pulling back from his family. From this angle, Roy couldn’t make out Roy’s face at all. “Could you give me a second?”

“Of course,” Alphonse said with a frown, looking between his brother and Roy.

Roy smoothly shrugged a shoulder, going still when he realized Ed was headed right for him.

“Are you alright?” Roy said before he could hold it back. Ed was obviously fine and he never took well to being asked.

Ed’s mouth curved softly and the expression rocked Roy to the bones.

“Yeah,” Ed said, his voice raspy from a night of yelling for peoples’ lives. “Are—are you? Your head.”

“Oh.” Roy tentatively touched the offending spot, feeling the sharp spark of a burn when he pressed his fingers there. “It’s fine, thank you.”

“Roy,” Ed said, an urgency in his voice that seemed to climb from nowhere. Those sharp amber eyes were intent, searching Roy’s face for something. “Roy, about before—”

“I love you,” Roy said, his own eyes widening as his heart ran away with his mouth. “Then, now. Before and after. Tomorrow. Edward, I’m sorry. I was frightened and—”

Ed took Roy’s face in his hands and pulled him down, and Roy tasted Ed’s smile before they melted into each other, gravitated into each other’s embrace, recalled the shape of each other’s lips, licked into Ed’s mouth in the way that made his breath hitch and his fingers curl in Roy’s hair. Bursting to light from the clearing darkness that had so long kept Roy’s heart overcast and cool, Roy squeezed Ed tighter in his hold, resorting to kissing Ed’s mouth, his chin, cheeks, nose, eyebrow until Ed was sputtering and laughing and struggling to squirm himself from Roy’s embrace.

“Y’know,” Ed said, clearly giving up on escape as Roy theatrically squeezed him and rained obnoxious kisses of joy upon his head. He smelled like dust and sweat and that was absolutely fine. “For all your big man talk, you’ve always been kind of a baby, you—”

Roy promptly wrapped his arm around Ed’s face to muffle him and gave a happy sigh.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Hey!” Ed popped out of Roy’s arms, laughing and pawing at Roy to keep him from clinging. “Hey, _hey_ —you know we gotta have a long, _long_ talk later, right?”

Roy simmered right away, dropping his hands to himself as he took a breath and nodded, steadily meeting Ed’s gaze.

“Absolutely. Ed—”

“Al?” Ed called out, staring at something over Roy’s shoulder. Roy looked over with a frown, seeing nothing but Winry’s undamaged workshop and the series giant of spiralized, wind-catching sculptures that spun wildly in windy after effects of the twister. “Al!”

“What?” Alphonse yelled back, sounding harassed and exhausted for once. 

“Did your recycling bin survive?”

Roy scanned across the lawn to a scowling Alphonse and puzzled Winry.

“WHAT?” Alphonse said. 

***

“You think she’ll fly, Ed?” Ling asked, sitting on the floor of Winry’s workshop and cutting soda cans around and around like peeling an apple, until the result was a long, twirly spiral that he tossed in a pile of a dozen more.

Half of the crew was crammed into the shop, covering every available surface with tin spirals. Roy’s hands were bandaged and cut to high hell from the flimsy, merciless tin, but so were everyone’s as they worked hard for Ed’s plan.

The man in question was wearing a welding mask clapped over his face, a small soldering iron in his hand, busy meticulously melting a duo of spirals to each round weather tracker. 

“She’ll fly,” was all he said, and it was enough to keep everyone working through the night and into sunrise. 

Havoc, Fuery, and Falman had been relegated to helping with the house. Collecting debris with Alphonse and carrying it to the roadside or to a giant unlit bonfire pit, moving furniture into safe parts of the house, and pinning tarps up to cordon unlivable areas. 

By the time all was complete and Dorothy was full, they stepped into the morning light and hit everyone at once that they’d been awake for over twenty-four hours. 

An effervescent spring morning rain began to fall. A few brave birds sang their song, and Roy took Ed’s calloused hand as they walked to the back porch and into the kitchen.

The buttery baked fragrance of pancakes surrounded Roy like fluffy clouds, but the exhaustion was so deep that both he and Ed picked a hot one up from the platter with their hands, folded it like a taco, and ate them standing, staring at each other in silent speculation.

Ed met Roy’s eyes directly, always so straight forward, always brazen and brave and brilliant in ways Roy could simply never be. He could strive for it, admire it, but it would never be him down to the bones that kept him standing. Ed’s skeleton was iron, his brain a steel vault, and his heart two sizes too big for his body.

“I have a lot of explaining to do,” Roy murmured, absently wiping his hands on his ruined jeans. They needed to go in the garbage, anyway.

“Yeah,” Ed said. “But for now, let's sleep.”

They didn’t sleep. Not at first. 

Ed led Roy to the bathroom, opening the window where the chatter and hush of rain carried inside with fresh air. With sober, watchful eyes, Ed slowly helped Roy undressed. Rough hands skimming up Roy’s ribs as he helped shuck away the shirt, steady fingers on the button and zipper of his jeans, acting as a shoulder for Roy to lean on when he bent to peel off his socks.

They’d seen each other naked hundreds of times in the past, but now it felt new. Taking off Ed’s shirt revealed battle scars and stories that Roy knew, but the soft golden skin was something he hadn’t touched in what felt like a lifetime. Roy pressed a kiss to the violent shock of knotted white scarring on Ed’s right arm, an injury from the night his parents had been taken. Ed shuddered and leaned into Roy’s gravity, his mud-caked brow to Roy’s bare chest, just over his heart.

Roy finished undressing Ed, neither of them speaking with words but only touch, guiding and easing each other through the sheer weight of exhaustion. 

Ed set the shower to blistering hot and Roy made a noise of displeasure, suddenly recalled how often Ed took lobster boiling level showers and how often Roy would refuse to join because of it. Ed just barked a laugh and grinned, delicate bruises beneath his eyes but that gold all but aglow when he met Roy’s exasperated gaze. 

“Still a baby about it, huh?”

“You remain an absolute terror.”

Resolutely, Roy turned Ed in the shower and undid what remained of the French braid, raking his fingers through the thick weight of it, marveling at how Ed had left it to grow so long. At a soaking wet length, it reached the small of his back. Roy subtly rolled his shoulders as a hot, liquid pull rolled right through him from head to toe, lingering and swelling between his legs.

“Do you plan on using this to help princes climb up locked towers?” Roy said, encouraging Ed’s head beneath the spray while he gathered shampoo and filled his hand. This would be a double shampoo deal, no doubt.

“I just forget to cut it,” Ed said, tilting his head back as Roy began to work the lather into his hairline.

“Truly?” Roy said, smiling despite himself. He had an inkling, but he wanted to hear Ed say it all the same. “Sounds rather suspicious, if you ask me.”

“And you liked it,” Ed added, his brow wrinkling, his eyes scrunched shut as Roy massaged fingertips and soap over the crown and back. “I guess. Don’t piss me off right now, Roy. I’m feeling extremely charitable because no one died today.”

“And what a reason to celebrate,” Roy said, scooting around to catch a kiss on Ed’s pouty mouth before returning to the wash. 

Much to Roy’s pride in his self control, he manages to wash Ed’s hair twice and condition it deeply before he allows his hands to roam. The distinct jut of Ed’s ass had always been a weakness that Roy had never had an interest in restraining, and since Ed had announced himself as charitable and therefor an open target, Roy palmed and kneaded and spread Ed’s ass until Ed was pressing himself against the slippery tiles, hands sliding around for a hold on anything until he relented and leaned back into Roy, arms rising to link back and fist in Roy’s hair for the ride. 

He’d forgotten. Somehow Roy’s mind had masked from him the sheer sensuality that radiated from Ed like an electricity source, like a Tesla tower, vibrant enough to power a city block with energy. But when Ed lost himself, he wholly did so, gripping Roy’s hair and writhing back against him, lithe body in a delicious arch, Roy’s wet, dripping cock fucking the generous cleft of Ed’s ass in slow, lazy rolls of hips. 

The throaty, husky breaths and groans from Ed’s mouth echoed across the tile, ricocheted back to Roy in threefold, drove him beyond distraction as he slid hungry hands down Ed’s body, painting his thick, trembling thighs, dragging thumbs along the jut of his pelvis, one hand rasping a thumbnail over Ed’s nipple as the other took Ed’s cock in hand and worked it just as slow as Roy fucked against his backside. 

Roy felt like he was expanding and tightening, his heartbeat swelling beneath his skin, his pleasure tunneling in, dark around the edges as he buried his face in Ed’s neck and breathed him in. One arm clamped around Ed’s chest, held his back firm to Roy’s thundering chest while he increased the pace of his hold around Ed, slick and sloppy with Ed’s dribbling cock. 

The frustrated whine from Ed was music to Roy’s ears, encouraging him faster, smiling into Ed’s shoulder when Ed seemed to struggle with thrusting forward into Roy’s hand or grinding back against Roy’s length, so instead he keened a long, too-loud sound at the back of his throat that shattered Roy’s control in full. 

A blur followed; shoving Ed forward until he was bent in half, arms outspread and pressed to the tile, Roy gripping him by the hips with one hand to rut against him, still pumping Ed’s pulsing, desperately hard erection as he lost all sense but for Ed and more Ed. When the crown of Roy’s head caught on Ed’s hole, the sound Ed cried filled the space, likely filled the house, and the knowledge that the world knew Ed was Roy’s again was enough to send Roy over the edge alongside.

They. . .finished showering. Eventually. Ed leaned against the wall like a foal with newborn legs, his eyes drowsy and generous mouth lax with renewed exhaustion as he watched Roy finally wash his own hair. They toweled each other off, Roy smiling despite himself as he bundled Ed’s entire head and body, only for Ed’s rather cross expression to peek out.

“You’re awfully fuckin’ giddy,” Ed said as they dragged their useless bodies to his bedroom. 

“I can’t imagine why,” Roy said thoughtfully. “Life has truly become a bore.”

Ed ripped Roy’s towel off and smacked him in the face with it.

They both collapsed to the unmade sheets in the nude, Ed covering them both in the fluffy down comforter before he outright put the blanket over his head and fell silent.

“I should braid your hair,” Roy murmured, eyes already falling closed. Everything here smelled like Ed; like school supplies and books, dust and machine oil, grass stains and the ozone of an incoming storm. 

“S’fine,” Ed slurred from beneath the blankets. He rolled, draping his automail leg over Roy’s, tucking himself in close and resting his head upon Roy’s shoulder. 

“Edward?” Roy said softly.

“You’re noisy,” Ed said, his head still entirely beneath the covers.

“I’m sorry,” Roy said again, unsure of how many times he could say it before it meant nothing to Ed. A man of action would only accept so many words. But Roy could prove himself, would prove himself. “For walking away from what you offered. I can’t imagine it had been an easy decision for you or taken lightly. I can’t fathom your disappointment, having put your trust in my hands and having me drop it so quickly.”

Roy would have thought Ed asleep but for the sudden hitch in Ed’s breath.

“Yeah, well,” Ed croaked, then swallowed and cleared his throat. “A guy’s gotta take chances in his life. Otherwise fuck-all will happen and you might as well be dead and buried already.”

“That’s. . .extremely wise, Ed. Especially for you.”

Ed snorted a laugh and pinched Roy’s side, earning a yelp which spurred on another laugh. When Ed popped out from the blanket, his eyes weren’t sad, but the expression quickly sobered when Roy reached out to trace a faint scar on Ed’s dusky eyebrow. 

“Why?” Ed said suddenly. “Why did you. . .say no?”

“I was terrified of normalcy,” Roy said immediately, finally prepared to say it out loud after all these years. “Intimidated by what I thought it took to be married versus simply dating, I suppose. Concerned that I would grow bored or claustrophobic or, heaven forbid, _become_ boring.”

Ed blinked once, twice, his eyebrows slowly climbing toward his hairline.

“Roy. You realize that I live out of a truck for four months of the year and chase fatal weather conditions for a living, right? In what fucking world did you imagine bored or claustrophobic would come from that? For fuck’s sake, you and I once spent three weeks sleeping in a tent because we forgot to pay rent on that studio apartment above the nail salon that always stank of paint fumes. We took showers in the YMCA.”

Roy sputtered a laugh before he could help himself, then groaned and flopped his head back into the pillow, running both hands over his face.

“Shit,” he said, to adopt the vocabulary of the love of his life. “I’m—”

“The biggest fuckin’ bastard this side of the state line?” Ed said, ending with a jaw-cracking yawn as he pulled the blanket up over his head once more. “Yeah. I know it more than most. Now stop beatin’ yourself up for the time being and sleep. Dorothy is gonna fly soon and we don’t when.”

Roy dropped his hands and sighed, knowing Ed was right. He stared up at the dappled, watery freckles of raindrop light reflected on the ceiling and closed his eyes.

“Good morning, Edward,” Roy said.

“G’morning, Roy,” Ed said.

***

“Edward!” Alphonse’s voice hurtled Roy from sleep, but not in time to cover his body before Alphonse whipped the door open and gasped, quickly shutting the door as Roy groaned, face down on the bed and genuinely butt naked.

“Maes!” Alphonse called out, “I finally saw Roy naked! I don’t know what everyone’s been complaining about, he’s really rather impressive.”

“What fuckin’ _time_ —” Ed’s groan matched Roy’s as he sat up in bed, facing the wall with a bleak, sleepy stare, his unbraided hair streaming down his back like some kind of mythical storybook elf prince. Ed turned a stink eye to Roy, wildcat stare flickering the length of Roy’s body. “You know you’re ass-out naked, don’t you Mustang?”

Roy sighed. 

“I had an inkling.”

“Ed!” This time Maes was at the door, knocking hard. “Sorry to break up the love-fest, but Fuery caught radar of something big.” After a pause, he said firmly, “It might be an F5, Ed.”

Roy shot up in bed faster than Ed, which gave him a moment’s concern as he realized Ed had frozen altogether. His eyes were locked on the bedside photograph of his family.

“Edward,” Roy began slowly, taking care with his words as he rounded the bed and placed a hand on Ed’s stiff shoulder. “Edward, it’s time. I’m not going to leave your side, alright? And I hope you don’t leave mine. This won’t be the time to get careless.”

“Careless?” Ed repeated, and when those eyes snapped to him, they were molten and merciless. “I won’t get fuckin’ careless, Mustang. I’ve been waiting my entire life for this.”

That’s what Roy had been worried about.

They dressed quickly and thundered downstairs where the house was teeming with activity. Ed was already dashing out the door, but Roy sidelined for Winry and Theo. He pressed a kiss to Mini Ed’s hair and looked up, beaming at worried Winry.

“Thanks for beating me into shape,” Roy said, a little breathless with excitement for what was to come. “I’ll make sure he’s safe.”

Winry’s scowl melted, her expression helpless with worry.

“See that you do,” was all she said. And then the race began.

Ed drove, and Roy was fearing for his life before they even found the path of twister. But eventually the sky sunk into rotten, roiling green and bruised yellow, staining toward black and—

Seeing it in person punched the air from Roy’s lungs. Two and a half miles wide. Three-hundred miles per hour. Murder and fury in the purest form nature could provide. 

The excitement bled from Roy’s body, leaving him cold and horrified with the knowledge that both Ed and Alphonse had borne the brunt of this merciless beast. Had watched their parents sucked right out of the underground weather bunker meant to protect them, the trapdoor torn off its hinges. 

Ed had been ripped out as well after hiding baby Alphonse behind bags of grain. From the one time Ed had told the tale, Ed had been thrown against a tree, where he’d clung with both arms until the tree collapsed, taking his leg from the knee down with it. 

He’d lost so much that night. 

He’d been chasing it ever since.

Roy didn’t understand just what Ed thought he would achieve upon squaring up with an F5, but he had a chilling suspicion the stand-off could easily end in death.

Not today.

Which, as Ed swerved and drove the car into a cornfield with a dead-on path toward the screaming whirlwind, Roy realized this was easier said than done, because while the love of his life was brilliant and thrilling, he was also an absolute maniac. So, this was a problem they would need to workshop in the future. Or _right now_.

“Ed!” Roy yelled over the roar of the struggling truck as it bulldozed corn and hurtled toward the ominous black cyclone. “Ed, we can’t just drive into it!”

Ed’s eyes didn’t shift from his goal, didn’t flinch as the twister consumed a road, picking up a tanker truck in its path, and spitting out three-hundred thousand tons of flaming, exploding steel and diesel directly before them. Roy watched his life flash before his eyes as he gripped the Oh Shit bar above his window and leaned into the careening truck, Ed violently turning the wheel to dodge the rolling twist of remaining tanker.

“Ed!” Growing frantic and unsure just what Ed had planned, Roy anxiously held on and looked between Ed and the twister that took up miles, blacked out the sky, swallowed the world, destroyed lives and left little boys orphaned. “ _Ed_ , you can’t just drive into it. Your parents aren’t in there.”

“Just how fuckin’ slow did your new job make you, Mustang?” Ed finally shot back, speaking between gritted teeth as he pressed the gas and switched gears, aimed as the crow flies toward the twister. “Dorothy won’t fly like she is. She’s too light and the trackers will fly, yeah, but only if they’re _already in the sky_. Use your fuckin’ brain already!”

Like a cocked gun, it clicked.

“The car,” Roy said, probably too faint for Ed to hear. “It needs to pick up the car _with_ Dorothy attached, doesn’t it?”

Ed’s lack of reply was answer enough.

They were getting closer. Half a mile, maximum. The truck was beginning to lift, battered and abused by the swirling, shrieking winds. Hail the size of Roy’s fist began to thunder against the roof, one softball sized chunk of ice nearly shattering the windshield, leaving a vicious spiderweb of cracks from the center outward.

Still, Ed did not flinch, did not veer. 

Roy had to think fast, because apparently Ed had promptly stopped the moment he came face to face with his lifetime of trauma. 

“Ed,” Roy yelled. He pointed across Ed’s chest in the opposite direction of the tornado’s path. In the distance, a barn, one that might be spared from the destruction. “There!”

“What—”

“Shift the car into neutral, Edward,” Roy said, already unbuckling his seat belt, then Ed’s. “We’re going to jump out.”

“WHAT?”

Roy met Ed’s eyes, the car still hurtling toward imminent death.

“Stop, drop, and roll, Ed.”

Ed’s eyes widened.

“You’re fucking insane.”

Roy smiled.

“You reminded me how to be.”

With the car in neutral and set on an unwavering path toward the twister, Roy and Ed looked at each other one last time before they opened the doors and flung themselves into the mercy of the weather. 

Roy was instantly soaked, the rain beating down on him with a force that took his breath before he rolled and rolled and stumbled to a stand. He looked, clocked Ed's wild, unbraided hair whipping in the wind, and Roy ran. Faster than dodging death in the Marines, faster than running from Ed’s marriage proposal, faster than their chase in a cornfield that felt like weeks ago instead of days.

Roy ran towards Ed, ran towards life, ran for what he wanted rather than what he feared. 

And _Edward_ —fucking Edward Elric had the nerve to spin, turn around, running backwards with eyes like saucers until he stopped, _stopped_ and outright stared with tears streaking his cheeks. Roy briefly glanced over his shoulder in time to see the truck whirl up into the cyclone, taking Dorothy for her first and only flight. Success.

“IF I HAVE TO THROW YOU OVER MY SHOULDER,” Roy screamed over the cacophonous shriek of wind and rain and hail as he bolted toward Ed, “I DAMN WELL WILL, ED.”

That seemed to be enough incentive, because Ed was whirling off in a dash, hair like a comet as he streaked for the barn. He reached it first, yanking the door open and bolting it shut when Roy rushed in. 

They stopped, hands to their knees, keeled over and heaving for air, looking around for safety.

“Oh,” Ed said. “ _Shit_. What the fuck?”

Roy balefully looked around and realized they were surrounded by farm equipment. Sharp, wicked scythes lined the walls, axes and pickaxes hung and swayed from the shaking foundation. In one corner was a butcher’s table, an array of knives on hooks shimmering in the dingy light.

“Who the fuck—” Ed said.

“This is why I prefer the city,” Roy said.

“Liar,” Ed said. 

They both realized it at the same time. The roaring of the tornado was not fading. It was approaching, _fast_.

“It shifted,” Ed shouted, frantically searching the room with his eyes, frozen in place. Roy had never seen Ed so affected by fear, but under the circumstances, it made sense. All Roy wanted to do was pull Ed into a tight embrace him and save him through sheer strength of will. 

Instead, Roy spotted a water pump that would inevitably lead to a deep pipe drilled into a deeper well.

“Quick,” Roy snapped, pulling Ed to sit, before the protruding iron base of the pump. Ducking his head, Roy quickly began to unbuckle his belt, yanking it from the loops of his jeans with a whip-snap that widened Ed’s eyes. “Faster, get your legs around it, hold tight.”

“Is this really the best time for the belt?” Ed said, doing as he was told and hugging the thick, sturdy pipe. 

“ _Edward_ ,” Roy managed between clenched teeth as he sat behind Ed and began to wrap the belt around the pipe, then around both himself and Edward as a pair. “This is _hardly_ the time.”

With a grunt of effort, Roy buckled the strong leather so tight that he and Ed were fused chest to back, Ed’s cheek smashed against the pipe in a brutal hug.

The roof tore and flung up into the roaring heavens like the hand of God had simply picked it up and tossed it aside. The wind ripped at their cheeks and sharp metal began to whiz and fly past their heads as the plank-wood walls trembled with the fury of the elements. 

And then it was too loud, the air attacking their bared skin like needles, scraping and tearing at their air, and everything was black, blacker, blackest.

Until it was no longer. Roy’s eyes shot open and he frantically looked around, only to realize the walls of the farm were gone. The entire farm was gone, down to the baseboards. Attached to the water pump, they were the only living thing for miles in any direction, sitting plainly on a ransacked plain of mud. 

“Gee, Roy,” Ed said, breathing hard as he slumped his head back against Roy’s shoulder, “If you wanted a hug, you didn’t have to tie me up for it. Coulda just asked.”

Of all places and circumstances, Roy laughed. A full body laugh of relief, of hysterical exhaustion, of joy. Fumbling to unbuckle them from the pipe, Roy dragged Ed to the ground, rolling until he’d pinned Ed into the dirt. Ed was more dirt than human but for the impish white smile and bright, bright eyes. 

“In case another tornado befalls us within the next five minutes,” Roy said, licking his thumb and uselessly scrubbing at one of Ed’s cheeks, “allow me to inform you that I would follow you to the end of earth, Edward Elric. And I very nearly did there.”

Ed’s gaze softened, his wild grin easing off as he reached out to cup Roy’s jaw.

“Thanks for pulling me back from it.”

Roy leaned in, a breath away from a kiss.

“Any time.”


End file.
